Every Generation Needs Its Paglia
A little behind the scenes conversation
A weeks days ago, Georgie Boorman commented at the Iron Ladies virtual water cooler: “Confession time: I don’t like Camille Paglia.” Middle age bores like Leslie and I jumped in to explain why Paglia is so dear to us. Susan Goldberg, who is neither bore nor middle age, also pointed out that Paglia is pagan and Georgie, being a Christian, shouldn’t be expected to agree with her. Still, how do you explain to young people what it meant to read Paglia in the 90's?
But of course this was Camille Paglia we were discussing, so the discussion was not so simple
I don’t think there is a person in this world who agrees with Paglia on everything, which is fine by her. Paglia is neither a conservative partisan nor a political pundit. She is a public intellectual. To like her is not to agree with her on every point (or 80% of the time, or, heck, even 20% of the time, or it might look like Leslie’s formulation, to see most of her arguments as “right analysis, wrong answer”), but to appreciate what she adds to the conversation that few others in her profession do: historical knowledge, intellectual honesty and celebration of beauty.
Paglia acknowledged the fact that female bodies are desired, but instead of seeing it as something “problematic”, as a slippery slope of what gals today label “male entitlement”, “rape culture” and “toxic masculinity”, she saw inspiration. Paglia accepted and told us to accept that men and women are different, and that the differences between sexes are as beautiful as they are empowering for women. She was the original mansplainer and a pro-sex feminist, and unlike many other mansplainers and sex-positive feminists, she was never driven by resentment.
Before encountering Paglia I was very much onboard with much of the feminist agenda. I appreciated the way they demanded personal and professional respect for women (still do). At the time I didn’t give much thought to abortion, although coming from the USSR I was sure that it was the norm. Where I differed with feminists was on the issue of shoes: there was no way I was going give up my heels. Paglia made it unnecessary.
I thought her arguments on beauty were excellent. I kept reading. Paglia articulated a profoundly negative view of human nature, which is something that I share with her. Incredibly (and, in my opinion, wrongly), when she opines on politics, she starts with this essentially conservative worldview (fallen human nature) and somehow arrives at collectivist policies. Perhaps because of that Paglia was able, albeit not for too long, to convince fellow liberals that just like human nature, our society is not infinitely perfectible. Which was nice, I suppose, but it was important for me in my twenties to hear that worldview articulated so brilliantly, and to have it be tied into artistic pursuit.
A lot has changed since the nineties
Alas, in the second half of the twentieth century the general public returned to the idea that humanity is perfectible, and worse, began taking artists for gurus. Their opinions on morals and politics acquired caches. And while, of course, art has always been involved with questions of politics, morality and religion, the way an artist’s point of view is elevated above pretty much everyone else’s may be unique to our age.
At the same time, what is being considered art had been brought down a notch or two… or three. Carrying a mattress around a college campus is now art, and so is a pile of rocks. What unites most of the art work today is not technical excellency, emotional impact or even a highfalutin theory, as Tom Wolfe postulated a few decades ago, but underlying progressive ideology which has to be expressed if not in the work of art itself, then on a red carpet or during the cocktail hour.
Recently I heard a talk on the local radio proposing that since Hitchcock treated Herden so despicably, we should start referring to The Birds as a Tippi Herden movie. Really? Herden was a fine actress, no argument there; however, if The Birds is her movie, how would a viewer who saw it and like it know to check out Psycho or North by Northwest?
Hitchcock might had been (and here’s where Paglia’s view of human nature comes in) a rotten individual. Polanski is worse still. Yet it’s precisely for that reason that they are able to create lasting work of art. Again, Paglia:
Any artist is driven by strange forces. The whole impulse in art-making is to untangle your dark emotions. There’s always some strange drive in the work of any major artist. The idea that “people make art because they are happy people who want to share their thoughts” — ridiculous. No happy person has ever had a major career in the arts.
Their body of work is more significant than their personal failings and deserves to remain a part of our heritage. As contemporaries, we are legitimately outraged by their actions, and yet the push to staff Hollywood with upstanding, female individuals is short-sighted.
It is our prerogative to punish criminal behavior. Justice should be blind; powerful men should be prosecuted with full extent of the law. Apart from that, find better role models than self-righteous rock stars and their likes. It’s possible to appreciate the art without worshiping the artist.
And while we were busy surgically separating this piece from another one (long story), the mistress herself commented on #MeToo and Hollywood, pretty much along the lines as I expected she might, above:
The performing arts may be inherently susceptible to sexual tensions and trespasses. During the months of preparation for stage or movie productions, day and night blur, as individuals must melt into an ensemble, a foster family that will disperse as quickly as it cohered. Like athletes, performers are body-focused, keyed to fine-tuning of muscle reflexes and sensory awareness. But unlike athletes, performers must explore and channel emotions of explosive intensity. To impose rigid sex codes devised for the genteel bourgeois office on the dynamic performing arts will inevitably limit rapport, spontaneity, improvisation and perhaps creativity itself.
Another change since the nineties was a kind of domestication of Paglia by rank-and-file feminists. A few days ago, for instance, I came across an article about fashion and technology by Rachel Coldicutt. Ms. Coldicutt describes catching a photo of somebody named Helen Lasichanh at the Met Gala. Now, Met Gala is notorious for hosting trying-too-hard celebrities in ridiculous garb. Lasichanh, apparently, stepped into a blood-red cocoon made of velvety felt. Her head stuck out from uneven shoulder pads. Desexualized hint of female form was imprinted on the jumper.
Coldicutt, who in her next passage likened Bella Hadid’s catwoman outfit to a chastity belt (no really), compared the red cocoon to a medieval knight’s armor. Never mind that the poor girls’ arms are actually stitched into the gown so that she can wield neither a sword nor a shield, or that the whole thing looks like a moderately dull paring knife can slice right through it. She’s more of a hapless cartoon character, but feminists describe her as “fierce”.
Coldicutt lauded the puffy costume as a celebration of — you guessed it — female gaze. Your run-of-the-mill feminist is always on the lookout for female gaze which, in her opinion, results in “fierce” female images. (Ironically, in the last year or so the fashion took turn towards lace, velvet and realist flowers. Fashion always turns, and, no matter how hard talking heads try to bend it their way, it typically this has nothing to do with the politics or the economy.)
The armor idea is very Paglean, however, and incidentally, Coldicutt is not the only one running with it. It’s as if this strand of feminism walked past Paglia, heard a few terms they liked the sound of, picked them up and misapplied them. Cultural appropriation, anyone?
I hope there is someone out there who can speak to the millennial generation about art, civilization and human nature in a way that stresses freedom and personal responsibility and treasures history. It’s probably not going to be Camille Paglia. But, until we find someone else, Paglia will remain the most important public intellectual of our age.
